Kalecki’s Macroeconomic Analysis and the ‘Great Recession’

Abstract

Kalecki wrote extensively on macroeconomic policies during the 1940s, which were years not only of war but also of high levels of employ- ment; there was a sharp contrast with the preceding decade with its years of depression, often seen as following the Wall Street crash of 1929 and bank collapses in the early 1930s. Kalecki also looked ahead to the post-war world, where he saw the potential return of depression and unemployment. The recovery from the Great Depression had not been completed in the late 1930s, and for many countries (including the UK and the US) full employment was only secured with the onset of war. The ‘Great Recession’ has been running now for some five years, and, at the time of writing, unemployment in the euro area, for example, remains at over 11 per cent and output remains below the level of 2007. The prospects are for continuing high levels of unemployment and slow growth.